Cost Performance and Time 

By on

 

Cost and Performance in this project
are more important than time
Often us engineers get so bogged down in equations, using software, producing drawings and writing specifications that this becomes the sole focus.   Good engineering design needs to go beyond the technical and look at the full picture.   A good way to measure this is cost, performance and time.

Cost is an important aspect of any project, yet often only considered at a cursory level.  If two designs perform the same, but one costs less than it could be argued that the cheaper design is the better design.  Good engineering should always strive for cost effectiveness. 

Performance is the second measure.  Performance means ensuring the technical and specification requirements of the project are realised.   If something does not perform as expected (or worse not at all), then the engineering has not been up to scratch.   Luckily concentrating on performance is the natural habitat for most of us.

Time is the final measure.   All projects take time to design and things need to happen within a reasonable time frame.   While some projects are more time sensitive than other, all projects will (should) have some form of time constraint. 

 Putting it all together

Each project is different and the easiest way to visualise this is the engineering triangle (see illustration).  The requirements for any particular project are located within the triangle, the position being indicative of the relative importance of the cost, performance and time. Some projects will be more performance centric (a NASA space probe for example).  Others would be more cost centric (a lens for a disposable camera) or time critical (projects where a completion date has been publicly announced).

Knowing how cost, performance and time interrelate on a project should guide the engineering design.  The end result of considering these project measures is always a better engineered design.



Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus



Frame Leakage Protection

While not as popular as it once was, frame leakage protection does still have some use in some circumstances.  In essence frame leakage is an earth fault...

How to Calculate Motor Starting Time

Request to look at induction motor starting time have come up a few times on the site. Hopefully in this post, I give you guys some idea on how to calculate...

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was born exactly at midnight on July 10, 1856 in the tiny village of Smiljan, Lika in Croatia. In his late teens, Tesla left the village to...

Photovoltaic (PV) Panel - Performance Modelling

In an earlier note on the site [Photovoltaic (PV) - Electrical Calculations], the theory of solar (PV) cell calculations was introduced.  In particular...

Generator Sizing & Operation Limits

When selecting a generator, there are inherent limits on the active and reactive power which can be delivered. Generators are normally sized for a certain...

Three Phase Power Simplified

A single phase system is perhaps the most common type of system most people are familiar with. This is what people have in their homes and what appliances...

DC Motor Operation

Coils of wire on the rotor carry a d.c. current which generates a magnetic field. A stator magnetic field is created using either permanent magnets or...

8 Motor parts and common faults

Straight forward list of some common motor faults.  If I have missed any other common faults, please take a bit of time to add them in as a comment below...

Meeting room of the future

The IET site has a video of a visit showing of a high tech meeting room developed at Napier University in Edinburgh. It a good demonstration of innovative...

Mobile Phones (Brick to Implant)

The mobile phone was born in 1973. They were the size of a brick and weighed a couple of kg, making them difficult to fit into your pocket. At a few thousand...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note